So, if you play micro-stakes tournaments ranging from $3-5 per buy-in, your bankroll should be somewhere between $600 and $1500 depending on the games you play.

Downswings will feel like the end of the world if you don’t manage your bankroll carefully. Having a nice cushion to fall back on during the rough times will help you stay emotionally stable even when your graph might not be.

2. Move Down in Stakes When Necessary

A lot of poker players have big egos, and want to brag about playing high stakes. This presents a problem when said players go through a downswing.

It may feel embarrassing, or like you’re wasting your talent, but there’s no shame in moving down in stakes after a downswing. It’s a smart strategic decision and you should feel good that you are taking the appropriate steps to avoid going broke. You shouldn’t feel pressured to play tournaments outside of your roll for any reason.

Far too many good pros have gone broke because they hesitated to move down in stakes. Don’t follow in their footsteps!

3. Sell Action

Selling a piece of your tournament action is an effective way to reduce variance without having to alter your playing habits.

When you sell action, investors then get to keep an equal percentage of your profit depending upon how much they’ve invested. For example: if they invest $100 and you are playing a $1,000 buy-in tournament, the investor is entitled to 10% of your winnings (assuming no mark-up).

Selling action is easy if you have friends in the poker community. If not, you can sell your action on poker forums (like the 2+2 marketplace), amongst the Twitch community, or apply to sell on action-selling sites like Stake Kings.

CAUTION: Avoid selling your action in a risky way. Make these arrangements with people that you can trust or use a service like Escrow that can protect you from scammers.

Ryan Fee explains a few must-read tips for investing in MTT players in this article.

4. Temper Your Expectations

Tournament players tend to be overly-optimistic when estimating their future profits, which makes downswings feel extra crippling when they occur.

You can’t expect to win–or even cash–in every single tournament that you play. You are going to lose a lot more often than you are going to win; that’s the nature of poker tournaments. With large swings looming, it is important to be realistic with your expectations.

Imagine registering for a $25 buy-in tournament with 700 players that pays the top 100 spots.

If–for the sake of example–we assume that all players are of equal skill, you are only going make the money 1 in every 7 times (14.2%). This frequency will be higher if you have an edge over the field, but not that much higher.

Estimated your expected return on investment (ROI) is more difficult given the variance in MTTs. A player who absolutely crushes MTTs over a large sample (5,000+ games) will have an ROI of around 35%. For solid winning players, a 20-25% ROI is attainable.

Now let’s do the maths to prove the reality of the MTT predicament:

If you play 5,000 tournaments with a $5 buy-in, a 20-25% ROI would result in an expected profit of $5000-$6,250. That’s a fair amount, but not a ton considering many large field $5 tournaments pay upwards of $1000 to the winner.

Don’t be disappointed because you don’t make a run in every single tournament that you play. This is a deluded mindset that will stop you from approaching poker in a rational and objective way.

5. Avoid Playing While Tilted

When you’re on a downswing, it can feel like it doesn’t make a difference if you play well or not–the cards are going to spite you either way.

You play patiently with your short-stack, finally pick up KK and lose to a fish that out-flops you after calling your 12BB shove with A2o. While on a downswing, standard beats like this can feel soul-crushing. Monkey-tilt ensues and you punt off stacks in tournaments for the rest of the evening.

If you start to feel a negative mindset coming on, you should stop registering for new tournaments immediately. Finish up your session and take some time away from the game until you can return with a positive mindset and your A-game.

Poker isn’t going anywhere – the games will still be there tomorrow, but a big chunk of your bankroll won’t be if you lose your temper at the tables.

6. Study More

It is normal to lose confidence in your game while on a downswing.

Variance may be at the root of your downswing, but you should still take time to review your hands and analyse your strategy. If you can, don’t hesitate to bring on a second set of eyes to look through your hands as well.

There is always room to improve your game, and spending just a few hours reviewing your play and patching any leaks will not only improve your expected ROI, but also restore your confidence for your next MTT session.